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Kelvin and Statistical Mechanics

Oliver Penrose

in Kelvin: Life, Labours and Legacy

Kelvin played a big part in the development of statistical mechanics, both for equilibrium and non-equilibrium. This chapter reviews these developments, taking a particular interest in Kelvin's own ... More

Kelvin played a big part in the development of statistical mechanics, both for equilibrium and non-equilibrium. This chapter reviews these developments, taking a particular interest in Kelvin's own contributions. Topics covered include Kelvin and thermoelectricity, gas modeled as a collection of molecules, the reversibility paradox, mathematical probability models, and Boltzmann's equations.Less

Natural selection in closed asexual populations

Graham Bell

in Selection: The Mechanism of Evolution

The mechanism of evolutionary change can be studied directly through selection experiments in laboratory microcosms. This chapter begins by describing the experimental approach to evolution, and goes ... More

The mechanism of evolutionary change can be studied directly through selection experiments in laboratory microcosms. This chapter begins by describing the experimental approach to evolution, and goes on to analyse adaptation over different time scales. The first section in this chapter is about microcosmologica. Subsections here concern Dallinger's experiment; the laboratory microcosm; the inhabitants of the microcosm; the selection experiment; fitness and adaptedness; and microcosm genealogy. The second section is all about sorting (in other words selection of pre-existing variation) and includes subsection on a single episode of selection; the sorting of a single type; the mixture of discrete types; the Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection; the sorting in finite populations; drift and selection; and fluctuating population size. The third section is on purifying selection (defined as maintaining adaptedness despite genetic deterioration) and this section discusses the following: mutation-drift balance; mutation-selection equilibrium; and Muller's Ratchet. The fourth section is about directional selection (this is restoring adaptedness despite environmental deterioration) and details the probability that a beneficial mutation will be fixed; periodic selection; Fisher's geometrical analogy; the variable-mutation model; the extreme-value mode; clonal interference; the distribution of fitness effects; genetic interference; and the genetic basis of adaptation. The fifth section is about successive substitution and includes detail on phenotypic evolution towards the optimum; adaptive walks; transitivity; and clonal interference. The sixth section, Cumulative adaptation, includes the following: the protein matrix; connectance; synthetic beneficial mutations; functional interaction in a protein structure; the evolution of RNA sequences; reversibility; cumulation; cumulative construction of novel amidases; diminishing returns; and contingency. The last section called Successive substitution at several loci explains genetic interactions; the adaptive landscape; the allele matrix; compensatory mutations; compound structures; processing chains; the effect of mutation in a simple processing chain; the pattern of adaptation; the evolution of metabolic pathways; in vitro selection; genetic changes during adaptation; and repeated adaptation.Less

The Third Analogy: Interaction

Georges Dicker

in Kant's Theory of Knowledge: An Analytical Introduction

This chapter offers a detailed analysis and a critique of Kant’s attempt in the Third Analogy to prove that all substances stand in relations of causal reciprocity. It discusses implications of ... More

This chapter offers a detailed analysis and a critique of Kant’s attempt in the Third Analogy to prove that all substances stand in relations of causal reciprocity. It discusses implications of modern physics for Kant’s argument, and, drawing again on Guyer’s work, reconstructs and evaluates the most plausible version of the argument.Less

Fostering the Emergence of Customary Law *

Francesco Parisi and Vincy Fon

in The Economics of Lawmaking

This chapter compares custom formation in the specific context of a cooperation problem, under the alternative environments of role-reversibility and stochastic ignorance. The quantitative element of ... More

This chapter compares custom formation in the specific context of a cooperation problem, under the alternative environments of role-reversibility and stochastic ignorance. The quantitative element of a custom is given by a behavioral pattern that emerges through the independent or interdependent actions or statements of individuals, each of whom pursues his self-interest. The optimal choices of individuals under two perspectives are considered, role-reversibility and stochastic ignorance, in the absence of preexisting customs or social structure. The effect of group size on the emergence of custom is discussed and it is shown that variations in group size have different effects upon the two regimes of stochastic ignorance and role-reversibility. Under both regimes cooperative customs are more likely to emerge when individuals interact in smaller groups, but stochastic ignorance and role-reversibility induce different effort levels.Less

Introduction

Saul M. Olyan

in Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions

This chapter is divided into three parts. The first section, ‘Mourning in Social Science Discussion’ tackles some of the more important anthropological research on mourning. The second section ... More

This chapter is divided into three parts. The first section, ‘Mourning in Social Science Discussion’ tackles some of the more important anthropological research on mourning. The second section ‘Mourning and Rejoicing as Ritual Oppositions’ describes the antithetical relationship of biblical mourning rites and rites of cultic rejoicing explained most effectively by G. A. Anderson. It adds further observations and relevant texts for consideration. The third section ‘Identifying Types of Mourning’ justifies the use of the use of term ‘mourning’ for ritual behaviours not directly linked to the death of an individual. It briefly looks into the points of contrast and similarity among the types of mourning, such as locus, presence or absence of pollution, time period, and ease of reversibility.Less

Mourning the Dead

Saul M. Olyan

in Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions

This chapter focuses on mourning the dead. All mourning behaviours function to separate the mourner ritually from society and the cult. The ritual separation of the mourner over the dead is ... More

This chapter focuses on mourning the dead. All mourning behaviours function to separate the mourner ritually from society and the cult. The ritual separation of the mourner over the dead is accomplished by distinct practices such as weeping, sitting on the ground, tossing ashes or dust upon the ground, and tearing of garments. The chapter also explores several aspects of mourning, aside from weeping and tearing of garments. Four interesting characteristics of mourning are: the length of the mourning period, the locus of mourning, the mourner's impurity, and the reversibility of mourning. The process of ritual separation may be aided by the activities of mourning professionals, often women, whose performance may illicit the appropriate ritual response from mourners and those who join them. The chapter concludes with the social dimensions of mourning as context for both social continuity and change.Less

The Golden Rule

MARCUS GEORGE SINGER

in The Ideal of a Rational Morality: Philosophical Compositions

This chapter argues that the Golden Rule does not require anyone to do for another what he thinks he would want himself to do if he were that other. ... More

This chapter argues that the Golden Rule does not require anyone to do for another what he thinks he would want himself to do if he were that other. Such an interpretation makes it equivalent to its Inversion. What the Golden Rule requires is that everyone ought to act in his relations with others on the same standards or principles that he would have them apply in their treatment of him, taking account of and respecting, but not necessarily acceding to, their wishes and desires. This is the most that anyone can reasonably ask, but nothing less will suffice. Naturally, the Golden Rule by itself does not unambiguously and definitely determine just what these ‘standards or principles’ should be, but it does something towards determining this, and it is not necessary that it do everything.Less

Isothermal and adiabatic processes

Stephen J. Blundell and Katherine M. Blundell

in Concepts in Thermal Physics

This chapter applies the results of the previous chapter to illustrate some properties concerning isothermal and adiabatic expansions of gases. These results will assume that the expansions are ... More

This chapter applies the results of the previous chapter to illustrate some properties concerning isothermal and adiabatic expansions of gases. These results will assume that the expansions are reversible, and so the first part of the chapter explores the key concept of reversibility. This will be important for the discussion of entropy in subsequent chapters.Less

Dubliners

Scarlett Baron

in ‘Strandentwining Cable’: Joyce, Flaubert, and Intertextuality

Chapter 2 is devoted to a close intertextual reading of both authors’ collections of stories, Trois Contes (1877) and Dubliners (1914). The argument focuses on the word ‘gnomon’, which famously ... More

Chapter 2 is devoted to a close intertextual reading of both authors’ collections of stories, Trois Contes (1877) and Dubliners (1914). The argument focuses on the word ‘gnomon’, which famously appears in italics in the opening paragraph of Joyce’s collection, and which affiliates it to Flaubert’s short story, ‘Hérodias’, in which it also features. The use of this rare word is read as a gesture of acknowledgement on Joyce’s part, indicating a subtle but extensive semantic, thematic, symbolic, and structural intertextuality between his and Flaubert’s short stories. The chapter also considers Joyce’s response on a technical level, exploring the modes of his elaborations on Flaubert in such areas as the splicing of the realistic and the symbolic, the blurring of the boundaries between the static and the dynamic, and the deployment of cinematographic writing.Less

The Inconsistency of Thought

Leslie Hill

in Bataille, Klossowski, Blanchot: Writing at the Limit

This chapter investigates Pierre Klossowski's challenging and idiosyncratic reworking of Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal return. It explores the writer's long-lasting but shifting engagement with the ... More

This chapter investigates Pierre Klossowski's challenging and idiosyncratic reworking of Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal return. It explores the writer's long-lasting but shifting engagement with the writings of Sade, and examines how philosophy, theology, and myth in Klossowski's varied work (which includes philosophical exegesis, translation, and uncategorisable essayistic meditations) become the point of departure for a different type of fictional writing that, by examining the reversibility inherent in fantasy and phantasm, decisively challenges received conceptions of identity and meaning. To this end, the chapter proposes a detailed rereading of Klossowski's 1965 trinity of novels Les Lois de l'hospitalité (bringing together La Révocation de L'Édit de Nantes, Roberte, ce soir, and Le Souffleur), and demonstrates how in those narratives, numerous inherited philosophical assumptions are severely put to the test by literature itself.Less

The Standard Criticisms of Comparativism

Robert J. Fogelin

in Figuratively Speaking: Revised Edition

There has been almost universal agreement that Aristotle's so-called reduction of metaphors to similes is hopelessly inadequate. The philosophers who have lined up against Aristotle are an impressive ... More

There has been almost universal agreement that Aristotle's so-called reduction of metaphors to similes is hopelessly inadequate. The philosophers who have lined up against Aristotle are an impressive group of leading philosophers, including Max Black, John Searle, Nelson Goodman, and Donald Davidson. Their criticisms are examined in close detail and rejected. At bottom, they all seem to turn on the same mistake, namely, that Aristotle's treatment of metaphors as elliptical similes amounts to reducing metaphors to literal comparisons when, in fact, Aristotle holds that similes are themselves figurative. The chapter takes over Tversky's account of the relationship between literal and figurative comparisons, taking the notion of salience as central.Less

A Theory of Figurative Comparisons

Robert J. Fogelin

in Figuratively Speaking: Revised Edition

With these objections out of the way, this chapter presents a positive account of how figurative comparisons function. Figurative comparisons build on the resources provided by non-figurative (or ... More

With these objections out of the way, this chapter presents a positive account of how figurative comparisons function. Figurative comparisons build on the resources provided by non-figurative (or literal) comparisons. Roughly, a literal claim that A is similar to B indicates A shares some of B's salient features. Such claims are valuable in at least three ways: (1) They can convey a great deal of information in a compact form; (2) They can solve ineffability problems; and (3) They can call attention to likenesses that might go unnoticed. Following Tversky, with metaphors, the governing salient features are reversed from B to A, thus setting for the respondent the task of readjusting the context to make sense of this shift.Less

The Past Histories of Molecules

Craig Callender

in Probabilities in Physics

This chapter unfolds a central philosophical problem of statistical mechanics. This problem lies in a clash between the Static Probabilities offered by statistical mechanics and the Dynamic ... More

This chapter unfolds a central philosophical problem of statistical mechanics. This problem lies in a clash between the Static Probabilities offered by statistical mechanics and the Dynamic Probabilities provided by classical or quantum mechanics. The chapter looks at the Boltzmann and Gibbs approaches in statistical mechanics and construes some of the great controversies in the field — for instance the Reversibility Paradox — as instances of this conflict. It furthermore argues that a response to this conflict is a critical choice that shapes one's understanding of statistical mechanics itself, namely, whether it is to be conceived as a special or fundamental science. The chapter details some of the pitfalls of the latter ‘globalist’ position and seeks defensible ground for a kind of ‘localist’ alternative.Less

Reversing

F.H. Buckley

in The American Illness: Essays on the Rule of Law

This chapter discusses the faults and changes sought in American private and criminal law. It discusses constitutional infirmities and the reversibility of presidential government. The chapter also ... More

This chapter discusses the faults and changes sought in American private and criminal law. It discusses constitutional infirmities and the reversibility of presidential government. The chapter also offers some recommendations on how to slow down the economic pathologies of the American legal system.Less

Engendering Faith: Sexual Defilement and Spiritual Redemption in The Renegado

Jane Hwang Degenhardt

in Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage

This chapter discusses in more detail the gendered implications of Islamic conversion. It considers the stakes of redemption, sexual seduction and redemption in Philip Massinger's The Renegado, and ... More

This chapter discusses in more detail the gendered implications of Islamic conversion. It considers the stakes of redemption, sexual seduction and redemption in Philip Massinger's The Renegado, and reads this play against Robert Daborne's A Christian Turned Turke. Here, it reveals a tension within The Renegado that involves embodied resistance and spiritual redemption that divides along the lines of gender. It shows that while the sexual transgression of the Christian protagonist with a Muslim woman is redeemable by spiritual repentance, the chastity of the Christian heroine is protected by a magical relic. This demonstrates the reversibility of male transgression and the permanent and embodied consequences of female sexual contamination.Less

Conclusion: Modernism’s Fifth Continent

Paul Giles

in Backgazing: Reverse Time in Modernist Culture

This concluding chapter takes its title from a book of photographs about Australia published in 1931 by E. O. Hoppé. The cover of The Fifth Continent showed the photographer atop a globe looking back ... More

This concluding chapter takes its title from a book of photographs about Australia published in 1931 by E. O. Hoppé. The cover of The Fifth Continent showed the photographer atop a globe looking back at a map of Australia, and it is this attempt to reconstitute the world in relation to alternative spatial perspectives that provided the impetus for Hoppé’s work. Similarly, to read authors such as Slessor or Dark in parallax with canonical types is not only to correlate relatively neglected figures with modernism’s larger orbit, but also to highlight various neglected aspects of more established writers, the complex ways in which their narratives face backwards as well as forwards. The particular force of backgazing within a sphere of modernism thus lies in the way it resists conventional classifications by projecting not an oppositional but a reversible world, one whose boundaries are rendered enigmatic.Less

General Considerations

John von Neumann

Nicholas A. Wheeler (ed.)

in Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics: New Edition

This chapter considers what would happen to a mixture with the statistical operator 𝗨 if a quantity 𝖱 with operator 𝖱 is measured in it. It then investigates the thermodynamics of quantum mechanical ... More

This chapter considers what would happen to a mixture with the statistical operator 𝗨 if a quantity 𝖱 with operator 𝖱 is measured in it. It then investigates the thermodynamics of quantum mechanical ensembles from two different points of view. First, the chapter assumes the validity of both of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, and proceeds on this basis to calculation of the entropy of ensembles. In this effort the normal methods of phenomenological thermodynamics are applied, and quantum mechanics plays a role only insofar as these thermodynamic observations relate to objects whose behavior is regulated by the laws of quantum. Afterwards this chapter proves the validity of these fundamental laws in quantum mechanics. Next, the chapter introduces some reversibility and equilibrium problems. Finally, this chapter discusses the macroscopic measurement.Less

The Future as Synthesis

Helga Nowotny and Giuseppe Testa

in Naked Genes: Reinventing the Human in the Molecular Age

The conviction that we stand before an epochal breakthrough with revolutionary possibilities has accompanied every technological vision. Yet we must not lose sight of the power to persist and the ... More

The conviction that we stand before an epochal breakthrough with revolutionary possibilities has accompanied every technological vision. Yet we must not lose sight of the power to persist and the so-called “shock of the old”, whereby continuity of societal arrangements manifests itself in the face of the apparently most radical technologies. In this last chapter, we trace the triangulation among science, individuals, and institutions in shaping the future. First, we look at the increasingly global transformation of science into a kind of superorganism whose decentralized parts operate in networks. Its ingenuity impacts the life experiences of individuals whose identity and (multiple) affiliations are being determined anew, genetically as much as socially. In this fluid situation the most creative individuals are ready to take their destiny into their own hands. Yet, they could hardly succeed without robust and flexible institutions. Their task, we argue, is increasingly to align biotechnological and social innovations and to stabilize them in order to enable democratic pluralism. Thus a legitimate and open space for experimenting with new biological forms of life is created which invites also experimenting with new forms of living together. Institutions should empathetically accompany individuals who are ready to experiment so that, in this triangulation between science, individuals and institutions, a space for the primacy of the political is created with the potential to redefine the common weal and the options for society and its individuals alike.Less